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Gold Standard: Nine Asian/American Modernist ArtistsPost an Event »

Togonon Gallery

June 10 - July 11, 2010

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77 Geary Street Second Floor San Francisco, CA 94108
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Gold Standard: Nine Asian/American Modernist Artists Miyasaki Untitled San Pablo Series
Gold Standard: Nine Asian/American Modernist Artists is a selection of vintage paintings and works on paper celebrating the artistic achievements and contribution of Asian/Americans artists in the development of American modernism. The artists include: C.C. Wang, John Way (Wei Letang), Constance Chang (Chang Shangpu), Ruth Asawa, George, Miyasaki, Arthur Okamura, Leo Valledor, Carlos Villa, and Gary Woo. The first three artists originally came from Shanghai; Gary Woo was from Guangzhou, while the rest were born in the US. All of the artists worked in California during the 1960s and 1970s. Guest curator Dewitt Cheng writes: “The title is both symbolic and historical. To monetarists and economists, the gold standard denotes the amount of the precious metal held on reserve to back a nation’s paper currency. West Coast aficionados of art and cultural history might recall that Gold Mountain was the Middle Kingdom’s name for Gold-Rush-era California; they might also remember the golden spike used in 1869 by Central Pacific Railroad Director Leland Stanford to ceremonially complete the transcontinental railroad (which was, incidentally, built by a labor force 50 per cent Chinese). That spike, which now resides in the Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, thus symbolizes the meeting of East and West, and, by extension, the careers of these Asian-American modernists who managed, a generation before multiculturalism, to unite traditional Asian art and western avant-gardism. Negotiating between cultures was no easy task: American critics tended to see the work as Asian, while Asian audiences saw it as American. The artists, predictably, tried to avoid being pigeonholed. Filipino-American Leo Valledor, immersed in black culture since his San Francisco childhood, disliked being identified by race; similarly, George Tsutakawa (not shown here), when asked to choose between Japanese and American identities, dismissed the question as meaningless: “I am neither; I am both.” We are fortunate that these artists chose the Middle Path between cultures, enriching both, and creating a body of work as lustrous and lasting and global in appeal as the universally prized precious metal.” Panel Discussion Striking Gold: Revisiting California's Asian-American Pioneer Artists Moderator: De Witt Cheng; Panelists: Mark Johnson, Paul Karlstrom and George Miyasaki About the Curator DeWitt Cheng is a San Francisco art critic, collector and curator who write for Art Ltd., Artillery, Sculpture, East Bay Express, SquareCylinder.com, VisualArtSource.com, and ArtBusiness.com
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Gold Standard: Nine Asian/American Modernist Artists Woo For a Drum
Gold Standard: Nine Asian/American Modernist Artists Constance Chang-Chrysanthemum (detail)